


make that call

by forgettheghosts



Category: Batman (Comics), Grayson (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Dark!Dick, Grayson era, M/M, Pre-Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, canon timelines what canon timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgettheghosts/pseuds/forgettheghosts
Summary: The Joker takes Jason. Dick chooses an ending.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 11
Kudos: 103
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	make that call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stevieraebarnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevieraebarnes/gifts).



> stevie! I was so excited to see your name as my assignment. I feel like I didn't do justice to how good your fics are or how much fun you have been to talk to online, but I hope you enjoy. There's definitely hurt and... technically comfort? Mostly just playing with Grayson era canon and morally ambiguous dick. hope you enjoy!  
> Big thank you to empires for being a wonderful beta! any remaining mistakes are completely my own. Thank you also to everyone from the jaydick summer exchange for all your hard work.

There were no wins when dealing with the Joker. Not really.

Even if they somehow got away without a single loss to Gotham, the pain that the clown managed to dredge up was never easy to recover from. If there was one thing Dick didn’t miss while entangled with Spyral, it was the endlessly creative sadism of Gotham’s rogues. Psychopaths just weren’t the same anywhere else; there was a certain flair for the dramatic created on the streets of Gotham that just didn’t seem to naturally occur in any other city. Dick would take tyrannical art dealers and alien tech over the tamest of Gotham’s lot any day. 

Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to drop everything and run home whenever he was asked, especially if it was one of his younger brothers doing the asking. 

“Hey, Timmy”, he spoke into his earpiece. He secured the last of the Uzbek intelligence who had been stepping on Helena’s toes, shoving him towards Tiger to be put into the holding van. He’d given Tim his personal frequency, much to Helena’s chagrin. She could have blocked it if she really wanted to, but he knew she wouldn’t; she couldn’t afford to piss him off that badly, no matter how much she postured. 

“Dick,” Tim replied. “Are you in this hemisphere?”

“Technically. What’s going on?”

“It’s Red Hood.” 

Dick frowned. “What about him?” Jason had been mostly amicable (by his standards) with the rest of the family recently. Dick would never say it out loud, but he thought his ‘death’ had been enough to encourage Jason to finally admit he cared about the others. 

“He’s missing.”

“He doesn’t exactly keep a consistent schedule.”

“He tells me if he’s going incommunicado, or at least Alfred. But it’s more the timing than anything,” Tim paused. “We didn’t tell you, because it wasn’t a sure thing.”

Dick felt a cold feeling start to creep into his stomach. “Didn’t tell me what?”

“We think the Joker is active again.”

Dick started. “What? I thought he was presumed dead.”

“Like I said, we can’t be certain. But chatter and recent murders point to him, or at least someone related to him, being active in Gotham. And Jason went dark about 12 hours after we found out.”

“Shit. No word from Kory or Roy?”

“Negative. Starfire is off-world and Red Arrow is back to civilian only status for now.”

Dick sighed. Best case, Jason had gone off the grid to go after the Joker without anyone watching him. Worst case… Dick didn’t want to consider the worst case. Not again. 

(Jason’s voice had been ragged; “You don’t do that to your… to another Robin.” He had shaken Dick’s hand off his shoulder. It had been years since he had denied such a touch.)

“Alright. I’ll be there ASAP. Grayson out.” He tapped his earpiece once, then again. “Hey there, Matron,” he started, “I’m gonna need a couple of vacation days. And maybe a favour.”

* * *

Dick landed in Gotham two hours later, courtesy of a hastily procured Door gained through a phone call with Midnighter;

(“Anything for you, sweet cheeks.”

Dick had snorted; “Sure thing, M. Say hello to your husband for me.”)

“Updates?” He asked as he stepped into the Cave. Tim rose from the terminal to meet him. He wrapped his little brother in a quick hug.

“Damian’s out with Cass. Hopefully they’ll spot something. I’ll give you the rundown in the meantime.”

Tim went through what had been gathered; two days after the Joker was spotted near Gotham Harbour, Jason had gone missing during patrol. 

“I thought maybe he’d finally gone for the kill, but no bodies turned up. If Jason was going to kill the Joker, he wouldn’t be quiet about it.” Tim said. 

(“You’re working for assassins, you know that, right Dickie?” Jason had said, voice crackling over a thickly shielded connection, Dick listening to his reprimands while crouched in a freezing basement somewhere in the Caucuses. “All those years of moral high ground, and Bruce just had to ask. You climbed right in bed with killers.”

“What can I say,” Dick replied, voice hoarse with dehydration. “You set a precedent.” He rubbed at the dry blood in his cuticles; he let Tiger do the killing, but Dick had made the guy talk first. Never let it be said that his time with Slade hadn’t taught him anything).

“There haven’t been any demands, which is also odd. Normally Joker would want to rub it in.” Tim continued. 

“Demands for what? He wanted that attention from Batman; Batman’s gone. The only one left who was involved with Ethiopia is Jason. That’s got to be the history here. He’s revisiting his last big win over Bruce.”

“And if he can’t get to Bruce, Jason is the next best thing.” Tim finished.

* * *

It hadn’t been too hard to triangulate the sightings of Joker, and he and Tim had organized to meet Damian and Cass. 

Dick had no intention of meeting with them. Tim insisted on getting to the rendezvous early, as expected. Dick knew Tim well; better than the young man thought he did. Better than his brother knew him. 

The dart was enough to knock Tim out for just three minutes. More than enough for Robin and Batgirl to retrieve him. More than enough time for Dick to make it to the warehouse on his own. 

He activated his comm. 

“This is Agent 37. Operation go.”

* * *

Dick doesn’t ever fire his gun. It doesn’t matter how perfect his aim is, doesn’t matter that it would make jobs cleaner and faster, that it would get Tiger and Helena off his back once in a while. He simply never fires it, the same way he’d never fired it in uniform in Bludhaven. 

As he listened to the Joker’s recorded cackle sound through the empty halls of the abandoned hospital, he reflected on why. It wasn’t the violence itself; the violence was inherent, it was in all of them, no matter how much Bruce might try to make it seem like something it wasn’t, like it was a choice they could make or a switch that could turn on and off. 

He never used guns because he knew how easy they would make it. The firing range of a gun took him far outside the immediate reactions to his own choices. He knew on some deep level that Jason used them for that reason. Guns were efficient, sure, but they also removed you from your own violence. For a professional like Slade that might not matter, but he knew it mattered to Jason. And it mattered to Dick. 

When he’d taken out the Joker all those years ago, he’d used his fists. That had made it easy for Bruce to save him. Tonight he wouldn’t make that mistake.

Helena had always told him that eventually, he’d have to choose between his morals and the outcome of a mission. Helena, he thought wryly, was usually right. 

He levelled his glock at the Joker’s head as he entered the room through a shadowy entrance. There was Jason, just like in the footage. He was tied to a post in the centre of the room, bound with chains. His body was limp, but he was breathing. 

Dick’s finger put the slightest amount of pressure on the trigger. 

He could do it; it would be easier than when he had used his hands, before. It could be less cruel than he had been before. He had killed for as much as this, before. 

Before he could move, he felt a sharp prick in the back of his neck. 

“Bye-bye, birdy.” A shrill voice spoke. 

* * *

It had been months since he had seen Dick last. 

(It hadn’t been months since they’d spoken- that right belonged to hushed conversations separated by continents or star systems, soft words that would never be allowed to see the light of day. He did his best not to think about it when he didn’t have to.

“Jay,” Dick would say, voice softer than a liar’s had any right to be.)

It had been on the roof of Gotham Bank, shortly before Dick left to return to Spyral. He had still had a bruise on his jaw from where Jason had punched him. 

(“You’ll keep looking after them, right? Tim and Damian. Especially Dami.”

“Nah, Dickie, I thought I’d just drop ‘em now that you’re back. I’m really into letting kids fend for themselves against the Rogue Gallery.” Jason snapped. 

Dick hadn’t even had a clever retort, just sighed, his eyes squeezed shut. He had reached out, placing a hand tenderly on Jason’s shoulder. Slowly brought their foreheads together. 

Jason froze, eyes wide and breath halted. Dick had reached up and pulled Jason’s head lower, pressing a kiss to it lightly.

“Bye, Little Wing.”

He lept off of the roof and away before Jason could come up with anything to say.)

Jason hadn’t really  _ thought  _ about what he would do when he tracked down the Joker. He had failed to kill him before; too weak, too scared, or too ethically sound, take your pick. It had been more instinct than anything when he had gone after the clown. He wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t planning to engage Joker alone. Without the blind rage and raw strength of the pit behind him, Jason knew it would be suicide to attack. But there had been no major activity, no uptick in violent crime or reports of events related to the Joker. Jason’s contacts on the street had confirmed that there had been no active recruitment; it looked like the Joker was laying low, waiting for his next big chance, maybe trying to suss out if Batman’s absence was permanent (and really, Jason was trying to figure that out too). 

The reconnaissance itself had gone fine. He’d observed the Joker from afar, tramping down on the fear and rage he felt, trying to get an idea of what was going on. He hadn’t told anyone else (he refused to call them his team) where he was going. Tim would fuss about planning and protocol, Damian would jump at the chance to go after his father’s nemesis, Babs would be ready but wouldn’t let him go alone. 

So, Jason made the beginner mistake of going in without backup. He was good at making the same mistakes over and over again, if nothing else. Rookie mistakes, as Bruce’s voice reminded him; mask instead of helmet, no support, no plan filed. Look where it had gotten him. He didn’t learn, apparently, when it came to chasing the Joker. 

He watched Dick slowly blink his eyes open, squinting in the spotlights before focusing on Jason. 

“I really hope you brought backup.” Jason croaked. 

“You know me, I like to go it solo.” Dick answered. One of his feet twitched a Bat code; backup in some form would be coming. Hopefully they would come soon enough. 

“All that superspy shit, you can’t even get backup for one lousy job in your hometown?” Jason said. The words underneath what he said were obvious; why are you here, why did you get captured, how did this go so wrong so fast?

“What can I say. You make me make bad choices.” Dick’s blue eyes bore into his. Jason held his gaze for a moment, then had to look away. 

He didn’t like that Dick was here; he liked even less that Dick had come after him. There had been a time where Dick would have left him behind, or not come at all. He knew that, as sure as he knew how much it had changed. What scared him as much as being tied up in another damn warehouse with the goddamned Joker was the fact that Dick had come for him. There had been a time when he was unattached, when no one, let alone Dick Grayson, kept any kind of tabs on him. He didn’t know when that had changed; before Dick’s “death”, certainly. Something had shifted, after the Court but before the Joker’s return. Encounters during patrol increased, and suddenly a private comm line was always open. Jason had grown accustomed to Dick’s voice in his ear, quipping or advising or just being his asshole self. They didn’t talk about it outside that channel. When it had gone silent, Jason had been desperate enough to tune into the main Bat channel most nights, just for something to fill the silence. 

When the sound had come back, he couldn’t stop himself from returning to that familiar voice. 

His eyes flicked back to Dick’s, still boring into him. Footsteps sounded, and out of the darkness crept the Joker, or what was left of him. His face was a mess of scar tissue, eyes nearly invisible. White greasepaint was smeared over the remains of his face, a red smile looking like it had been slathered on like an impatient child. He dragged a crowbar behind him in one of his hands.

“I heard a joke once,” he said. His voice was like a mangled parody of itself. Whatever was keeping it alive, whatever had kept him alive after the fall, it was barely hanging on. “What’s the best way to kill two birds?”

“That’s not even a joke, you creepy asshole,” Jason muttered. Joker’s face moved in what Jason assumed would have once been a grin. 

“With one stone, silly Robins. One stone.” 

“You gonna beat me to death again, fucker?” Jason snarled. He tried to keep the shaking out of his voice. 

The Joker’s features twisted again. “I didn’t  _ beat  _ you to death, silly bird. The bomb took care of you.”

The Joker took a sheet of paper out of his tattered jacket. “What’s this? We have a letter from a fan; let’s take a look, kids. Autopsy Report of one Jason Peter Todd. Cause of Death; any guesses kids?”

The Joker shifted the crowbar, lifting it in front of him.

“Thaaaaat’s right! It’s blunt force trauma! Not how I’d describe such a good time, but these doctors, no sense of humour.”

Jason tensed as the Joker limped towards him, crowbar outstretched. 

“Tell you what; pick a place on our little agent here. We’ll call it pin the tail on the spy. If you get right, he gets it; if you get it wrong, you do. You get it anyway, of course, but this is more fun.” The Joker moved closer. Jason could faintly hear Dick struggling in his bonds, making threats that Jason wasn’t really comprehending. The Joker took Jason’s chin in his hand, wagged it back and forth. When he spoke his breath stank like rotting meat. Jason felt like he was seeing two scenes at once; now, and then. Gotham and Ethiopia. One life and another. 

“Red!” Dick yelled. “Hood!”

The Joker whipped around. “You shut up, you aren’t my favourite. Don’t you  _ get  _ it, you’re boring! Mean old Lex might like you, but you’re used goods, pretty boy! Who hasn’t taken a chunk outta Nightwing these days!” He cackled. 

“Hit me! Come on, Joker, I’m the original. You want to get back at the Bat? A Robin you killed once already is nothing. Take me out, maybe he’ll care enough to come back for you.” Dick snarled. 

(There was a single file in Bruce’s archives about what Dick had done to the Joker, when he thought Tim was dead. The only copy in existence of the footage from that theater was stored there. He hacked into the system after Arkham, before Tim had perfected his security and when Oracle was too distracted with a Rogue breach.

Dick had beaten the Joker to death.

It had taken Jason’s breath away.)

The Joker chuckled. “We do love volunteers, yes, we do! But you broke the rules, yes you did,” Joker reached into his pocket and pulled out Dick’s gun. “A bad, bad boy. Live rounds!” He pointed the gun at Dick, then Jason, then back. “Whaddaya say; let’s make it Russian?”

He clicked the safety off and pressed the barrel to Dick’s forehead. 

Jason could see the whites of Dick’s eyes; his eyes were open wide, his gaze steady. It struck Jason then that Dick didn’t, and in fact hadn’t, seem afraid. Why?

A shot cracked through the air. 

* * *

“Are you really in a position to be asking favours, Grayson?” Helena had asked him. “And you don’t get vacation days, you get missions to Syracuse. What’s this about?”

“Don’t think of it a favour, then. Think of it as protecting your investment, and taking a big player off the board.”

“What do you want?”

“Just 12 hours and your perfect aim, Matron.”

* * *

Headshots typically weren’t worth the effort they required. Jason had never really bothered with them for that reason; the dramatism was unmatched, but a hit or two to the chest was as likely to kill and easier to guarantee a clean hit with. 

They took more effort, more skill, and a level of commitment to eliminating the target; not just the target’s life, but his identity as well. Whatever was left of it.

Helena excelled at headshots. It made Dick feel nauseous to watch her; their few missions together had proven she was too fast and too quiet for him to stop like he did Tiger. 

This once, he didn’t even try. 

* * *

Jason watched in removed shock as the Joker’s brains splattered across Dick’s face. Blood soaked the white front of his shirt, chunky and thick. 

“That was close, Agent.” She spoke. 

“Thought I’d give you a clean shot. Did you have to spray my face?” Dick replied. The woman (Huntress, Jason would later discover) sliced neatly through Dick’s restraints with some kind of glowing knife. 

* * *

Helena’s shots were always clean. The Joker had died quickly; faster than the last time. Dick tried to reassure himself with that. That if Bruce would have allowed any kind of death, it would be a painless one. 

Of course, Dick knew damn well that Bruce would have died himself before shooting an enemy. But Bruce wasn’t here; he wasn’t here and he had sent Dick into a world where none of the morals they both clung to mattered anymore. 

He changed back in the Cave. He pulled on a spare uniform and washed the blood from his face. He had to be back in Europe by morning- a few hours away. Helena was waiting for him outside the city. She didn’t have any of the trepidations he did about what she had done; to her it was a favour, an exchange. He’d go on a dreary, boring mission in return; maybe have to do another teaching stint. It should bother him more; it should bother him at all. But all he saw, all he felt was the relief he had years ago at the blood coating his fists when he thought it had finally been over. Now, it was over. Tim and Damian’s angry silence at him going solo would be harder to weather. He didn’t know how to explain to them that he wasn’t a team player anymore. 

“Did you plan it?” Jason spoke from behind him. Dick looked up and met his eyes in the mirror, then turned.

“Does it matter?”

“Does it- of course it  _ matters,  _ Dick. Did you plan it? Did you call in your- whoever she is?” Jason demanded. 

“She’s my boss, technically. I’ll be pulling overtime for this. That’s all two weeks in the desert buys you these days.”

“What the- He was  _ mine,  _ if anyone was going to kill him it was me, how did you even do this?” Jason rambles out. 

What Dick knows about Jason, what he thought the man might not know about himself, is he doesn’t love the violence. He claims to, he tries to. A bag of heads and a shotgun put on quite a show. He might love the vengeance, the punishment. But he doesn’t relish the act of it, just the result. 

At 13, Dick had thought more about how Tony Zucco’s blood would feel on his skin then he did what would happen after. The reason he and Bruce worked so well together was that in those early days they had been each other’s only guarantee against the violence going too far. Dick took Bruce’s anger, his fists. Whatever he could dish out. He took whatever the scum on the streets couldn’t survive. Bruce took his rage, his grief, the aftershocks of his parent’s corpses hitting the ground. 

Bruce was gone. Dick was alive; despite everything, he was alive. 

He reached out, took Jason’s gesturing hand in his own. 

“I wasn’t going to let him take you again.” He said. He tried to convey, in those words, the desperation and grief that had led him to call Helena in; the fear that had led him to make the call. He could justify it to himself as not being the one to pull the trigger; that Helena only made the call because his life was immediately in danger. In the end, all that mattered less than Jason being alive. His other hand reached up and laid on Jason’s cheek. “I couldn’t do that again.”

With a last inhale, he took in the scent of cigarette smoke and blood. Jason’s baffled expression and angry eyes, still flashing green from whatever Talia had done to him, whatever he had survived. Gently, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jason’s cheek. 

“I have to go.”

“Dick-” 

“M, open sesame,” Dick spoke into his comm. “It’s okay, Jason. It’s over now.”

Dick stepped backwards into a portal; Jason was left alone.


End file.
